Windram Hopes His Course Will End In Pro Career

Mark Windram would rather use all the time there is for his golf game, ''but you've still got to work.''

Between the hours he works as assistant manager of Mount Dora Golf Club, Windram puts in more hours on the club's course, on its practice putting green and in a nearby field trying to become more consistent. That's what Windram wants, consistency. Pros are consistent.

Windram, a former No. 1 player for Mount Dora High School, has a 2 handicap, but more importantly to him, he has his amateur status.

With that intact, Windram has set a course to play in as many amateur events as his schedule allows, playing against some of the best players in the state and Southeast. The U.S. Amateur Qualifying tournament at Bloomingdale Golfers Club in Sarasota on Aug.12 is next.

''If you're an amateur, that's the best,'' Windram said.

He's been working this amateur game for the better part of three years now, since he quit Lake Sumter Community College a few classes short of a degree. He thought about joining one of Florida's minitours -- ''I probably should have done that just for the experience,'' he says -- but worked a short time for his father before accepting a job at Mission Inn Golf and Tennis Resort.

It was Phase I of the Amateur Plan to improve his golf game to the point where turning pro isn't some silly pipe dream.

Windram quickly discovered two benefits of the job: use of the course driving range and use of the course.

''I would hit balls on the range, and since it was my job to pick them up anyway . . . . .

''Just playing at Mission Inn was good for me,'' he said. ''I had played out here at Mount Dora Country Club since I was a kid, and I had never developed a long-iron game. If you play Mission Inn off the championship blue tees every day, you've got to get a compete golf game.''

He played off the long tees virtually every day for three years, playing in amateur events such as the Lake County Men's Amateur in between work days. In January, he took his job with Mount Dora and began his field work.

Unlike Mission Inn, Mount Dora has no driving range, so Windram uses a make-shift driving range in a field beyond the golf course. If he works in the afternoon, he practices before work. If he's working early, he practices late. Windram gathers his own golf balls, hits them into the field and then retrieves them. Then he hits them again.

''It's not the best thing in the world,'' he says, ''but you do what you gotta do.''

He spends at least another hour on the putting green.

''That's the part of my game that's really starting to come around,'' he said. ''That's where you can save a lot of strokes and score well, and that's the bottom line.''

That along with finishing in the top two or four in a state or national amateur qualifying tournament. In his last six tournaments, Windram has played well and scored well, finishing in the top 10, including in a tournament he played in despite being on his honeymoon.

''But it's not worth a flip if you don't finish in the top two, four or six, depending on how many can qualify.''

To qualify for the U.S Amateur, held this year at Shoal Creek Country Club in Shoal Creek, Ala., Windram will play 36 holes in one day and will have to finish in the top five among the 78 golfers entered. If he fails, it may signal the beginning of the end of the Amateur Plan.

Qualifying for the Tallahassee Open is Oct. 27, a tournament for which Windram nearly qualified last year.

''That probably will be when I'm going to decide what I'm going to do, whether I'll turn pro.''

If he stays an amateur, he still will have two years of college eligibility left once he finishes at Lake Sumter. Or, at 25 years old, he could join one of the minitours.

''Hey,'' he said, ''they say the average age of someone breaking in on the PGA Tour is 27.''